Cargo may be transported to its destination using one or more of several different types of vehicles, including, for example, ships, trains, aircraft, and trucks. Such cargo is transported while located in the interior of cargo areas. In some cases, cargo may include hazardous, easily flammable, and/or easily combustible materials that may render transport dangerous to the cargo itself, as well as to the vehicle transporting the cargo and operators of the vehicle.
In many instances, cargo may be carried in an area separated from an operator controlling the vehicle. As a result, an operator may be unaware of a fire or explosion that has occurred within a cargo container or within the cargo area. In addition, there is often more than one cargo container located in any given cargo area. This may render it difficult to determine which containers are on fire, even if it has been determined that there is a fire occurring within a given cargo area.
Due to the nature of a cargo vehicle, there may be a limited supply of fire suppressant available. For example, aboard a cargo aircraft, the weight of any fire suppressant may limit the amount of fire suppressant that may be carried for suppressing fires. Therefore, it may be desirable to limit the amount of fire suppressant used to extinguish a fire in order to reduce the weight carried by the aircraft by focusing any release of fire suppressant on the particular area in need of fire suppressant, rather than merely releasing a large enough amount of suppressant to flood the entire cargo area. Furthermore, the fire suppressant itself may be harmful to some types of cargo. Therefore, it may be desirable to limit the release of fire suppressant to the location in need of fire suppression, so as to limit the spoilage of cargo not in need of fire suppressant. As a result, it may be desirable to provide a fire detection system that can determine the approximate location of a fire, so that an appropriate amount of fire suppressant can be directed solely to the location experiencing the fire.
Because cargo areas experiencing a fire may be located remotely from cargo vehicle operators (i.e., the cargo may be located in an unoccupied and/or difficult to access portion of the vehicle), it may be more difficult to provide fire suppressant to an area experiencing a fire in a timely manner. Therefore, it may be desirable to provide a system for supplying fire suppressant remotely and in a timely manner.
One example of a cargo vehicle having an operator located relatively remotely from the cargo area is an aircraft. The majority of cargo carried by modern aircraft is transported in cargo containers or on cargo pallets. The containers are generally referred to generically as Unit Load Devices (“ULDs”). For safety considerations, ULDs must often be configured to engage an aircraft cargo locking system in order to restrain the cargo containers under various flight, ground load, and/or emergency conditions. Under federal air regulations, ULDs are considered aircraft appliances, are Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-certified for a specific type of aircraft, and are typically manufactured to specifications contained in National Aerospace Standard (NAS) 3610.
In the cargo aircraft example, while some cargo areas may be conventionally equipped with fire extinguishing bottles intended for manual operation, very few cargo containers may be accessible to flight crews during a flight, thereby rendering it difficult to manually extinguish a fire located in an aircraft cargo area using fire extinguishing bottles. In addition, fires may occur inside cargo containers, and if those fires are not suppressed or extinguished, they could breach the walls of the container and spread throughout the cargo area. However, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to suppress or extinguish a fire inside a container without discharging fire suppressant into the interior of the container.
Thus, it may be desirable to provide a system for detecting a fire in a cargo container of a vehicle cargo area. Further, it may be desirable to provide a system for suppressing a fire associated with a container for which a fire has been detected. In addition, it may be desirable to provide a system for supplying fire suppressant inside the container. Further, it may be desirable to provide a system that has reduced weight for suppressing a fire associated with a container.
In order reduce the labor and time associated with loading and unloading cargo from a cargo area, it is desirable to minimize impediments to crews responsible for loading and unloading cargo. Thus, it may be desirable to provide a system for suppressing a fire that does not provide unnecessary impediments to loading and unloading cargo from a cargo area.
Problems associated with detecting and/or suppressing fires are not limited to the cargo transportation industry. Similar problems may arise, for example, wherever cargo and/or other articles are stored in a location that is remote from a person supervising the cargo or other articles, such as, for example, a storage facility. Thus, in a broad variety of situations, it may be desirable to remotely detect and/or remotely suppress a fire.